Recently some of my children gave me a gift for my birthday that arrived a couple of months late. It was so new on the market that it wasn't ready yet when my birthday happened. At least one of my boys is an early adopter and somehow he learned about this product and got his siblings to pitch in for it. Elemind is the product and the catchphrase on the inside cover is "Sleep On Demand." First some background.
For the last 9 or 10 years of my life, I have been struggling with my sleep. I have the opposite problem from when I was a young girl and it would take me forever to fall asleep. Now, I will go to sleep easily and then I will wake up after 4, 5, or 6 hours and have trouble going back to sleep. 5.5 hours is probably my average night with a bad night being less than 5 hours, a better night being 6 hours, and a great night being 7 hours of sleep. 8 hours of sleep rarely happens and I don't know how anyone sleeps longer than 8 hours because I am incapable of it. I truly want to get a good night's sleep, I know I need more sleep, and I know how good it is for people to get enough. But it's not something I can force my body to do.
I think my poor sleeping is a combination of different things: hormonal changes, an overreactive bladder, stress, my Type-A personality, and maybe other things. I have tried SO MANY different solutions. On the drug side, traazodone was not at all helpful while quitiapine helped me stay asleep but only worked every few nights. And I woke up feeling pretty drugged. Benadryl occasionally helped. Later I learned that the quality of your sleep with sleep aids is not very good so I have steered clear of those in the last several years and no longer use them. Ever. On rare occasions I use melatonin.
I talked to a couple of doctors (in 2019 and 2021) who weren't as helpful as I would have liked. One recommended the sleep deprivation method but didn't give me enough information about it to do it effectively. I tried it for a few nights and was so exhausted I couldn't handle it any longer. Then I went on vacation and slept great! I tried cognitive behavior therapy and had one or two expensive sessions with someone who worked with me on this sleep deprivation method that slowly works up to a longer night's sleep. I was pretty faithful to the method for about 6 weeks and then decided it wasn't helping me enough for the discipline it required and the results I was not yet seeing. She had me read two books: Say Goodnight to Insomnia (which details the sleep deprivation method), and Set It and Forget It (which tells you not to worry about your sleep because it's not going to help anyway). They were interesting and informative but didn't work miracles.
I got blackout curtains for my bedroom and tried keeping the bedroom temperature cooler. My most effective resource has turned out to be exercise which a doctor did recommend. I try to exercise somewhat vigorously for 30-60 minutes most days. It definitely helps but it's not a cure-all. My non-conventional go-to solution is to read Jane Austen books on my phone in the middle of the night. I enjoy the books a lot but they are quite wordy and there is no suspense in the plot line for me since I've read them multiple times. They're also always available on Libby. Reading them takes my brain out of the loops I tend to get in when I'm lying in bed. When I notice I'm starting to fall asleep, I take off my glasses and put my phone down and hopefully go to sleep.
Enter Elemind:
Recently in the mail I received my birthday present: Elemind, the device that is supposed to help bad sleepers get a better night's sleep. It's a very expensive device that is supposed to read and respond to my brainwaves to guide me into a deeper sleep. Here is my experience.
First night (Dec. 4): I put on the device about 9:50pm right before we turned out the lights. I had washed my forehead so the contact was better with my skin and installed the app on my phone. I put on the headband and tried to adjust it so it fit properly and then lay down. I listened to the barely audible sound of the machine for about 5 minutes before going to sleep before 10pm. At 2:30am, I woke up. The machine had turned off when I went to sleep (like it's supposed to) but the discomfort of the device is what woke me up, I think. I went to the bathroom then turned the device back on. After 15 minutes, I wasn't asleep and it was kind of bugging me, so I took the headband off, then read Sense and Sensibility for a few minutes before going to sleep, waking up again at 5:25. I got close to 7 hours of sleep so it ended up being a better night. I had exercised a lot that morning and the previous two nights had not been very good so I was overdue for a good night's sleep.
Second night (Dec. 5): I had to go to bed later (10:45) because of an orchestra rehearsal. I put on the device and I kept it on until I woke up around 3:30ish. When I tried to turn it back on, the app wasn't connecting, so I just took the device off and went to sleep pretty well until 4:30.
Third night (Dec. 6): Again, a later bedtime because of an orchestra concert. I put on the device but it was harder to go to sleep because my daughter was coughing a lot. Also, it was hard to connect the device to the app but eventually I got it to work. I might have taken the device off before I went to sleep but I can't remember. When I woke up at 4am, I wasn't wearing it.
Fourth night (Dec. 7): True confessions. Another late night because of my concert and I opted not to wear the device at all. Putting the device on takes time and I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. I slept okay but not long enough--as usual.
Fifth night (Dec. 8): I went to bed about 10 wearing the Elemind. It was not very comfortable thanks to the band cutting into the top of my ears and although I tried to adjust it, after about 10 minutes, I took it off. Since I don't usually have trouble falling asleep at the beginning of the night, it's frustrating if it is harder for me to fall asleep with it on.
Sixth night (Dec. 9): After a lot of nights of not very much sleep, I put on the Elemind which didn't seem as uncomfortable as the night before and I went to sleep right away about 10pm. I slept quite soundly until 3:30am when I found the Elemind almost off. So I took it off and put it aside. I got up for a minute but couldn't find the Elemind when I was ready to go back to sleep so I read my Jane Austen for a few minutes and went back to sleep and slept until almost 5:30 just waking up once more.
Seventh night (Dec. 10): I put the device on and then I couldn't get it to connect to the app on my phone. This is probably the most frustrating aspect of this thing. It should not be hard to connect to the app but frequently it is. I tried to fix it for a few minutes and then I gave up. That was the nail in the coffin for this device for me. Fortunately I was able to get a reasonable night's sleep (6 hours) without it.
Eighth night (Dec. 11): I realized that the reason it didn't connect last night was because I didn't have it charged enough (maybe that was always the problem). So I thoroughly charged it and it connected much better. I wore it for part of the night then took it off when I woke up at 3am and went back to sleep without it.
Summary: Since I don't struggle to go to sleep at the beginning of the night and only struggle in the middle of the night, I don't think this device is worth the trouble and expense for me. When it worked, I liked the barely audible sounds that helped me get out of my brain. The device might have helped me sleep more deeply but that was impossible for me to measure--I definitely don't think it helped me sleep longer. The discomfort was just too big a distraction. I didn't like having to adjust everything to be just right every night, which actually seemed impossible to achieve. If I could have gotten it to be more comfortable, I might have stuck with it longer. So I'm going to return it and thank my children for trying to help me sleep better. It was a noble effort on their part and I really appreciate them thinking of me. That was my favorite part about the gift--my children showing me that they wanted to help me with something that has been hard.
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